Reference: Christianity
[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]
The Eastern Church has no pope. Instead, it holds that God’s truth is disclosed through “the conscience of the Church,” using this phrase to refer to the consensus of Christians generally through ecclesiastical councils.
The Eastern Orthodox Church, which today has somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 million communicants, broke officially with the Roman Catholic Church in 1054, each charging the other with responsibility for the break. Eastern Orthodoxy includes the Churches of Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Sinai. While each of these Churches is self-governing, they are in varying degrees in communion with one another, and their members think of themselves as belonging primarily to the Eastern Church and only secondarily to their particular divisions within it.
There is no overall governing authority over the Eastern Orthodox Church. They are a group of self-governing churches.
In most ways the Eastern Orthodox Church stands close to the Roman Catholic, for during more than half their histories they constituted a single body. It honors the same seven Sacraments and interprets them in fundamental respects exactly as does the Roman Church. On the teaching authority there is some difference, but even here the premise is the same. Left to private interpretation the Christian faith would disintegrate into conflicting claims and a mass of uncertainties. It is the Church’s responsibility to insure against this, and God enables it to do so; the Holy Spirit preserves its official statements against error. This much is shared with Rome. The differences are two. One of these has to do with extent. The Eastern Church considers the issues on which unanimity is needed to be fewer than does the Roman Church. In principle only issues that are mentioned in scripture can qualify, which is to say that the Church can interpret doctrines but it cannot initiate them. In practice the Church has exercised her prerogative as interpreter only seven times, in the Seven Ecumenical Councils, all of which were held before 787. This means that the Eastern Church assumes that though the articles a Christian must believe are decisive, their number is relatively few. Strictly speaking, all the decisions that the Ecumenical Councils reached are embedded in the creeds themselves; beyond these there is no need for dogmatic pronouncements on such matters as purgatory, indulgences, the Immaculate Conception, or the bodily assumption of Mary, the last of which Orthodoxy introduced in practice but without proclaiming as dogma. Catholics regard these dogmas positively, as the development of doctrine, whereas the Orthodox consider them “innovations.” Generalizing this difference, we can say that the Latin Church stresses the development of Christian doctrine, whereas the Greek Church stresses its continuity, contending that there has been no need for the Church to exercise its teaching authority outside the Ecumenical Councils. What is referred to as “the magisterium of the academy” enters into this difference, for nothing like the great university centers of Bologna and Paris characterize the Eastern experience. When we reach for an image to epitomize Roman Catholicism, we think of the Middle Ages. Its counterpart for Eastern Orthodoxy is the Church Fathers.
In most ways the Eastern Orthodox Church stands close to the Roman Catholic Church. The differences are two. The Eastern Church assumes that though the articles a Christian must believe are decisive, their number is relatively few. The Latin Church stresses the development of Christian doctrine, whereas the Greek Church stresses its continuity.
The other way in which the Eastern Church’s understanding of its role as teaching authority differs from the Western pertains to the means by which its dogmas are reached. The Roman Church, as we have seen, holds that in the final analysis they come through the pope; it is the decisions that he announces that the Holy Spirit preserves from error. The Eastern Church has no pope—if we want to epitomize the difference between the two Churches, it is this. Instead, it holds that God’s truth is disclosed through “the conscience of the Church,” using this phrase to refer to the consensus of Christians generally. This consensus needs, of course, to be focused, which is what ecclesiastical councils are for. When the bishops of the entire Church are assembled in Ecumenical Council, their collective judgment establishes God’s truth in unchangeable monuments. It would be correct to say that the Holy Spirit preserves their decisions from error, but it would be truer to the spirit of the Eastern Church to say that the Holy Spirit preserves Christian minds as a whole from lapsing into error, for the bishops’ decisions are assumed to do no more than focus the thought of the latter.
The Eastern Church has no pope. Instead, it holds that God’s truth is disclosed through “the conscience of the Church,” using this phrase to refer to the consensus of Christians generally through ecclesiastical councils.
This brings us to one of the special emphases of the Eastern Church. Because in many ways it stands midway between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, it is more difficult to put one’s finger on features within it that are clearly distinctive; but if we were to select two (as we did in our sketch of Roman Catholicism), one of these would be its exceptionally corporate view of the Church.
Common to all Christians is the view of the Church as the mystical body of Christ. Just as the parts of the body are joined in common well-being or malaise, so too are the lives of Christians interrelated. All Christians accept the doctrine that they are “members of one another”; but while matters of degree are notoriously difficult to determine, it could be argued that the Eastern Church has taken this notion more seriously than either Roman Catholicism or Protestantism. Each Christian is working out his or her salvation in conjunction with the rest of the Church, not individually to save a separate soul. The Russian branch of Orthodoxy has a saying to this effect: “One can be damned alone, but saved only with others.” And Orthodoxy goes further. It takes seriously Saint Paul’s theme of the entire universe as “groaning and in travail” as it awaits redemption. Not only is the destiny of the individual bound up with the entire Church; it is responsible for helping to sanctify the entire world of nature and history. The welfare of everything in creation is affected to some degree by what each individual contributes to or detracts from it.
The Russian branch of Orthodoxy has a saying to this effect: “One can be damned alone, but saved only with others.” Not only is the destiny of the individual bound up with the entire Church; it is responsible for helping to sanctify the entire world of nature and history.
Though the most important consequence of this strong corporate feeling is the spiritual one just stated—the downplaying of that “holy selfishness” that puts its own personal salvation before everything else—the concept comes out in two other quite practical ways. One of these has already been noted. In identifying the Church’s teaching authority with Christian conscience as a whole—“the conscience of the people is the conscience of the Church”—Orthodoxy maintains that the Holy Spirit’s truth enters the world diffused through the minds of Christians generally. Individual Christians, laity as well as clergy, are cells in “the mind of Christ,” which functions through them collectively.
Orthodoxy maintains that the Holy Spirit’s truth enters the world diffused through the minds of Christians generally. Individual Christians, laity as well as clergy, are cells in “the mind of Christ,” which functions through them collectively.
The other side of this point concerns administration. Whereas the administration of the Roman Church is avowedly hierarchical, the Eastern Church grounds more of its decisions in the laity. Congregations, for example, have more say in the selection of their clergy. The Roman Church may argue that this confuses the offices of laity with clergy; but the strong corporate feeling of the Eastern Church has led her to believe, again, that divine guidance, even when it reaches down to touch practical issues of Church administration, is more generally diffused among Christians than Rome allows. The clergy has its uninfringeable domain, the administration of the Sacraments; but outside that domain the line that separates clergy from the laity is thin. Priests need not be celibate. Even the titular head of the Eastern Church, the Patriarch of Constantinople, is no more than “first among equals,” and the laity is known as the “royal priesthood.”
Whereas the administration of the Roman Church is avowedly hierarchical, the Eastern Church grounds more of its decisions in the laity. Priests need not be celibate.
In presenting the religions of Asia, it was suggested that union has counted for more there, and individuality less, than in the West; Hinduism sets the pace, with merger with the Absolute as its presiding goal. If this is roughly correct it helps to explain why it is the easternmost branch of Christianity that has most emphasized the corporate nature of the Church, both the ecclesiastical equality of its members (as against Catholicism), and their solidarity (as against Protestantism). It is also possible that residing, as it does, on the outskirts of Europe, it may have acquired less of a modern, Western overlay, and in consequence stands somewhat closer to early Christianity. We shall not explore that possibility, however, but proceed to the second distinctive emphasis its geography may have fostered, its mysticism, which resonates in ways with that of Asia.
The easternmost branch of Christianity has most emphasized the corporate nature of the Church, both the ecclesiastical equality of its members (as against Catholicism), and their solidarity (as against Protestantism).
Like all the religions we have considered, Christianity believes reality to be composed of two realms, the natural and the supernatural. Following death, human life is fully translated into the supernatural domain. Even in the present world, however, it is not insulated from it. For one thing the Sacraments, as we have seen, are channels whereby supernatural grace is made available to people in their current state.
Like other religions, Christianity believes reality to be composed of two realms, the natural and the supernatural.
This much virtually all Christianity teaches. The differences come when we ask to what extent it should be a part of the Christian program to try to partake of supernatural life while here on earth. Roman Catholicism holds that the Trinity dwells in every Christian soul, but its presence is not normally felt. By a life of prayer and penance it is possible to dispose oneself for a special gift by which the Trinity discloses its presence and the seeker is lifted to a state of mystical ecstasy. But as human beings have no right to such states, the states being wholly in the nature of free gifts of grace, the Roman Church neither urges nor discourages their cultivation. The Eastern Church encourages the mystical life more actively. From very early times, when the deserts near Antioch and Alexandria were filled with hermits seeking illumination, the mystical enterprise has occupied a more prominent place in its life. As the supernatural world intersects and impregnates the world of sense throughout, it should be a part of Christian life in general to develop the capacity to experience directly the glories of God’s presence.
Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air,
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars,
The drift of pinions, would we harken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places;
Turn but a stone, and start a wing:
‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estranged faces
That miss the many-splendoured thing.
(Francis Thompson, “The Kingdom of God”)
The Eastern Church encourages the mystical life more actively. By a life of prayer and penance it is possible to dispose oneself for a special gift by which the Trinity discloses its presence and the seeker is lifted to a state of mystical ecstasy.
Mysticism is a practical program even for the laity. The aim of every life should be union with God—actual deification, by Grace, to the point of sharing the Divine Life; theosis is the Greek word for the doctrine that this sharing is possible. As our destiny is to enter creatively into the life of the Trinity, the love that circulates incessantly among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, movement toward this goal should be a part of every Christian life. For only as we advance toward increasing participation in the Trinity are we able to love God with our whole heart and soul and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves. The mystical graces are open to everyone, and it is incumbent for each to make of one’s life a pilgrimage toward glory.
The aim of every life should be union with God—actual deification, by Grace, to the point of sharing the Divine Life; theosis is the Greek word for the doctrine that this sharing is possible.
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